Franklin Canal barge 95% done

A flood control station designed to keep away storm surges in the Gulf of Mexico from flooding Franklin and parts of West St. Mary Parish is now 95 percent complete, according to Tim Matte, executive director of the St. Mary Levee District.

The project cost the district more than $3.4 million. The district received more than originally requested, allowing a pump station was also built, Matte said. It will pump out excess water that accumulates on the Franklin side of the barge structure in the event it is closed during a weather event.

Water would be pumped out of the canal and directed to the opposite side of the control structure, he explained.

Cleco must still run power to the pump station.

Although the region has enjoyed a relatively quiet hurricane season, the storm season doesn’t end until November.

“If we have an event, we can put it in place,” District Chairman Bill Hidalgo said.

Once the structure is completed and dedicated in November, work will begin at the start of 2014 on a smaller scale flood control project in the Harrison Canal and Yellow Bayou areas.

Combined, the projects are expected to take just over a year, Matte said. Sheet piling in the canal and bayou currently helps keep flood waters at bay.

In September 2008, as Hurricane Ike pummeled the area, the Franklin and Hanson Canals and Yellow Bayou flooded more than 1,000 homes in West St. Mary. Flooding reached east to Garden City.

Flooding in Franklin included roughly 400 homes when Hurricane Rita struck in 2005.

“The floodgate is the answer,” Said state Rep. Sam Jones, D-Franklin. “It always has been.

Jones was instrumental in getting St. Mary more than $1.5 million for the Franklin project.

A former longtime mayor of Franklin, he said in the wake of Hurricane Ike, flooding “turned the issue into more than one confined to the city.”

Realizing a completion date has not been an easy process, the state representative said a number of people along the way did not want their private property to be used, slowing the project. Also, the U.S. Corps of Engineers required permitting through the bid process.

Although the nine-member St. Mary Parish Levee District was created in 2007 at the close of former Gov. Kathleen Blanco’s administration, the group didn’t meet until the following year, after Gov. Bobby Jindal ratified its appointments.

The levee district approved the project at the end of 2008.

Franklin Mayor Raymond Harris said he is ecstatic the project is nearly complete.

“The protection of our citizens has always been our number one concern, so now if we have a storm, we can take of our people, since this project is 100 percent operational and 95 percent complete.”